There are many applications of materials reduction apparatus in which the materials are reduced in size for further use of the reduced product, or for further processing, or for disposal of the product, in the latter instance the materials being waste materials. Customarily, the materials need to be fed into the reduction apparatus in a controlled or regulated manner, so as not to overload the reduction apparatus, which could result in stalling and damage of the equipment.
With the growing awareness of the need to dispose of waste materials in such manner as does not pollute the environment, attention has been given to the use of reduction apparatus for reducing the waste materials to a small product size, in order to facilitate disposal of the materials as by incineration, landfill and other methods. Typical of such waste materials are rolls of paper, loose paper, cardboard from various sources, particularly including containers, a variety of plastics, wood pallets, scrap wood, and the like. These materials occur in great quantities and, in their ordinary form, have considerable bulk which is disproportionately large to the actual mass of the materials themselves. This causes difficulty in handling the materials, unless they are reduced to a small product size, which of itself substantially increases the density of the mass of material and facilitates handling the same for ultimate disposition, whether it be by incineration, land-fill operation, dumping or other methods of disposal.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,150,984 issued Mar. 21, 1939 to L. B. Near et al, illustrates reduction apparatus which has been designed for the purpose of shredding junked items such as automobile bodies. In that patent, the apparatus includes a horizontal feeding table and a crushing device located above the table to exert a downwardly directed crushing force on the material.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,825,192 issued July 23, 1974 to Lloyd K. Knight, illustrates reduction apparatus including a hold down device similar to the apparatus of this invention. The apparatus described in this invention is an improvement to the apparatus described in the Knight patent.
The hold down device of Knight has performed generally satisfactorily. However, problems have been encountered when randomly sized materials are placed on the feeding table for delivery to the reduction apparatus. Large size materials engaging the hold down device sometimes cause the hold down device to stall, interrupting the operation of the reduction apparatus.
An object of this invention is to provide an improved hold down mechanism for reduction apparatus that efficiently handles the various sizes of waste material being fed to the reducer.